Unified formalism for entropy productions and fluctuation relations

Abstract

Stochastic entropy production, which quantifies the difference between the probabilities of trajectories of a stochastic dynamics and its time reversals, has a central role in nonequilibrium thermodynamics. In the theory of probability, the change in the statistical properties of observables can be represented by a change in the probability measure. We consider operators on the space of probability measure that induce changes in the statistical properties of a process, and formulate entropy productions in terms of these change-of-probability-measure (CPM) operators. This mathematical underpinning of the origin of entropy productions allows us to achieve an organization of various forms of fluctuation relations: All entropy productions have a non-negative mean value, admit the integral fluctuation theorem, and satisfy a rather general fluctuation relation. Other results such as the transient fluctuation theorem and detailed fluctuation theorems then are derived from the general fluctuation relation with more constraints on the operator. We use a discrete-time, discrete-state-space Markov process to draw the contradistinction among three reversals of a process: time reversal, protocol reversal and the dual process. The properties of their corresponding CPM operators are examined, and the domains of validity of various fluctuation relations for entropy productions in physics and chemistry are revealed. We also show that our CPM operator formalism can help us rather easily extend other fluctuations relations for excess work and heat, discuss the martingale properties of entropy productions, and derive the stochastic integral formulas for entropy productions in constant-noise diffusion process with Girsanov theorem. Our formalism provides a general and concise way to study the properties of entropy-related quantities in stochastic thermodynamics and information theory.